Jeni Wilson & Kath Murdoch

Introduction Types of thinking The role of the teacher Organising for thinking in the classroom Planning for thinking in the classroom Strategies for developing thinking Tips What if ...? Assessment and record keeping Proformas
Thinking Checklist for Students Stepping Stones Reection Bookmarks Mark My Words Bookmarks How Is Your Thinking Shaping Up? Know, Feel, Wonder, Do Thinking about Feeling Making Thinking Visual Socratic Questions Talk Tokens Question Tokens Thinking Audit

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Useful resources

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thinking

Introduction
Thinking is central to learning. To this end, teachers have always been concerned with what, when and how their students think. Across the world, we are experiencing a shift to more student-centred approaches to learning and this shift has brought about a new emphasis on the teaching of thinking. More and more educators are asking themselves: How can we help our students learn to be independent, creative, critical and reective thinkers? How can we support students to think for themselves? Developing the capacity to think for themselves by using a variety of thinking skills is essential for students to become successful, lifelong learners who can successfully tackle a range of problems at school and beyond. Planning for thinking in the classroom should be guided by a clear set of beliefs. The beliefs that underpin the strategies in this book are:
Thinking is central to teaching and learning. Students think in different ways. A teaching program should acknowledge and accommodate these differences. Reective thinking and metacognition enhance learning and student ownership of learning. Thinking skills and questioning strategies can be taught. This is best done within the context of meaningful content and purposeful activities. Cooperative group work can enhance thinking. Dialogue, including a range of types of questioning (between students and between teachers and students), is vital to the development of thinking skills. Improving students thinking takes time and a less cluttered curriculum. Developing students thinking skills enhances learning across the curriculum and in a wide range of real-world learning situations.

If these beliefs are accepted, they offer a framework for developing a more thinking-oriented classroom.

thinking

Types of thinking
Before we can plan to teach thinking more effectively, we need to clarify our own understanding about what thinking actually is. To do this, it is helpful to establish the different kinds of thinking that we want our learners to do. There are many types of thinking and different types of thinking are required for different purposes. For example, if logical thinking doesnt solve a problem, creative thinking might be useful. Metacognition would also be used to help decide if new strategies are required. While critical, creative and, to some extent, reective thinking are often well understood and taught, metacognition perhaps the most crucial type of thinking for student progress is often misunderstood and, therefore, is less effectively translated into effective classroom practice. Metacognition involves active self-assessment, active decision making and personal goal setting. Involving students in their own thinking and learning in these ways is an important educational goal. To be more specic, metacognition is when a learner (or teacher) is aware of their own thinking, evaluates their own thinking and regulates their own thinking. The following table provides examples of questions and statements that indicate metacognition.

Questions and statements indicating metacognition

What do I need to do here? (Awareness) I need to change my way of working. (Regulation) Am I making progress? (Evaluation) When I worry that I cant solve these problems, I never get them done. (Awareness and evaluation) The problem we did last week was similar to this (Awareness) I am not good at these kinds of tasks. (Evaluation) My plan isnt working so I need to change the way I am approaching this task. (Regulation)
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Reective thinking is also promoted as important for learning but it is not the same as metacognition. When we are being metacognitive, the focus of thinking is our own thinking, whereas reective thinking is about something other than our own thinking. Reective thinking is deeper than just thinking about something it refers to almost any purposeful thought where the learner engages in active, persistent and careful consideration of ideas for a deeper understanding. Deweys (1933) conception is almost always referred to when attempting to dene reection. He described reection as systematic and rigorous thinking used to resolve states of doubt, a question or a perplexity. Reection and metacognition are keys to learning. We learn from reecting on experiences, feelings and beliefs. This is true for all learners (including teachers), therefore we need to strategically plan and teach for thinking in the context of authentic learner-centred classrooms, regardless of the age of the student or the subject area being taught. Thinking can be organised in many ways but we have chosen three broad headings:
1 reective thinking and metacognition 2 creative thinking 3 logical and critical thinking.

The thinking guide on pages 78 has been developed to assist teachers with planning to make the links between the thinking types and the associated skills, teacher questions and sample activities. The guide also gives examples of questions and comments which indicate that students are engaging in the type of thinking.

Thinking

At a glance thinking guide

I want my students to
I COULD TRY STUDENTS MIGHT SAY

THINK

SO I ASK

REFLECTION AND METACOGNITION

de Bonos shoes and hats debate question dice brainstorm (list, describe, name) role-play conscience game Graphic organisers:
concept map cluster web spider diagram bridge comic strip CTG graph

self-question question make an action plan make decisions apply the ideas to another situation recall summarise review and revise think about others feelings and perspectives think ethically think empathically

How do you feel about ? How have you changed your thinking? As a result of what youve learnt, what do you plan to do? How does this relate to your life? What would you like to nd out? Why do you think ? Tell me/show me what you already know about What would other people feel/say about this? How might ____ be feeling? What are other ways of looking at this? How would this affect others?

I wonder if I need to know I want to How can I ? I dont know how to I think Ive done a problem like this before. Last time I did something like this I Next time I will I need to make a plan to work it out. I remember when I know that Ive learnt I feel They might feel/say Another way of looking at this is What if I changed ? I want to make something new. If I added There must be other ways I think will happen if we Theres lots of ways to Why cant we try a new way?

CREATIVE THINKING

create many original ideas adapt ideas add, expand, change nd and consider alternatives and solutions challenge assumptions imagine predict hypothesise plan invent

Can you construct/produce ? Whats the most unusual ? What if ? Suppose you ? What would you never nd/expect/see at ? How many different ways could this problem be tackled? What are some different possibilities?

forced relationship/ridiculous association BAR (Bigger, Add, Remove) the reverse key visualise SCAMPER (Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify/ Magnify/Minimise, Put another way, Eliminate, Remove/Reverse)

Types of thinking